October 01, 2012

Why Does Conor Friedersdorf Work for the Greater Evil? Weblogging

Conor Friedersdorf, addressing his largely-Democratic audience at the Atlanti Monthly, says that the right thing to do is to abstain from the Obama-Romney choice this year, because of Obama's very bad war and civil liberties policies that

terrorize innocent Pakistanis… ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists… cowardly, immoral, and illegal… cloaked in opportunistic secrecy… [plus] one of the most reckless precedents imaginable: that any president can secretly order and oversee the extrajudicial killing of American citizens…. Everyone must define their own deal-breakers. Doing so is no easy task in this broken world. But this year isn't a close call for me…

If Conor Friedersdorf's piece convinces 10 Ohioans to his position--to abstain from the Obama-Romney choice--Friedersdorf has done four times as much to boost Romney's chances in this election as he would have had he moved to Ohio and pulled the lever for Romney.

How can he justify such an outcome?

If Obama's war and civil liberties policies are a dealbreaker for doing anything to boost Obama's chances of winning the election, shouldn't Romney's war and civil liberties policies an even bigger dealbreaker to taking steps that boost Romney's chances?

Friedersdorf does try to justify this. His principal justification appears, however, a simple denial of reality and evidence.

Friedersdorf claims that there is no good reason to believe that Romney's war and civil liberties policies would be worse than Obama's:

What about the assertion that Romney will be even worse than Obama has been on these issues? It is quite possible, though not nearly as inevitable as Democrats seem to think. It isn't as though they accurately predicted the abysmal behavior of Obama during his first term, after all. And how do you get worse than having set a precedent for the extrajudicial assassination of American citizens? By actually carrying out such a killing? Obama did that too. Would Romney? I honestly don't know. I can imagine he'd kill more Americans without trial and in secret, or that he wouldn't kill any. I can imagine that he'd kill more innocent Pakistani kids or fewer. His rhetoric suggests he would be worse. I agree with that. Then again, Romney revels in bellicosity; Obama soothes with rhetoric and kills people in secret…

Friedersdorf wrote this as elements on Romney and his team continue to boast that they would start waterboarding people if Romney won election.

Comments

Why Does Conor Friedersdorf Work for the Greater Evil? Weblogging

Conor Friedersdorf, addressing his largely-Democratic audience at the Atlanti Monthly, says that the right thing to do is to abstain from the Obama-Romney choice this year, because of Obama's very bad war and civil liberties policies that

terrorize innocent Pakistanis… ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists… cowardly, immoral, and illegal… cloaked in opportunistic secrecy… [plus] one of the most reckless precedents imaginable: that any president can secretly order and oversee the extrajudicial killing of American citizens…. Everyone must define their own deal-breakers. Doing so is no easy task in this broken world. But this year isn't a close call for me…

If Conor Friedersdorf's piece convinces 10 Ohioans to his position--to abstain from the Obama-Romney choice--Friedersdorf has done four times as much to boost Romney's chances in this election as he would have had he moved to Ohio and pulled the lever for Romney.

How can he justify such an outcome?

If Obama's war and civil liberties policies are a dealbreaker for doing anything to boost Obama's chances of winning the election, shouldn't Romney's war and civil liberties policies an even bigger dealbreaker to taking steps that boost Romney's chances?

Friedersdorf does try to justify this. His principal justification appears, however, a simple denial of reality and evidence.

Friedersdorf claims that there is no good reason to believe that Romney's war and civil liberties policies would be worse than Obama's:

What about the assertion that Romney will be even worse than Obama has been on these issues? It is quite possible, though not nearly as inevitable as Democrats seem to think. It isn't as though they accurately predicted the abysmal behavior of Obama during his first term, after all. And how do you get worse than having set a precedent for the extrajudicial assassination of American citizens? By actually carrying out such a killing? Obama did that too. Would Romney? I honestly don't know. I can imagine he'd kill more Americans without trial and in secret, or that he wouldn't kill any. I can imagine that he'd kill more innocent Pakistani kids or fewer. His rhetoric suggests he would be worse. I agree with that. Then again, Romney revels in bellicosity; Obama soothes with rhetoric and kills people in secret…

Friedersdorf wrote this as elements on Romney and his team continue to boast that they would start waterboarding people if Romney won election.